Comments

Comment by bqiyue2

Update in 5.2:

It loses the 'reflection' part in order to comply to its new name, thus making this a pure protective ability. The cooldown is 3 turns now, reduced from 5. It still has 'first strike' ability, which means it will go first in most cases, but may fail when both pet use 'first strike' abilities. An easy way to determine the consequence is to compare the current speed, because whoever has higher will also move first in such scenario, as 'first strike' is just a simple multipler of current status. It retains its ability in negating both direct and field damage, plus applied debuff for the turn.

Here is some comparisons between this and other protective abilities:

Evanescence has a CD of 4 turns, and does not provide a speed bonus. This can also negate everything that deflection can counter. However, when user has higher speed, it is reported that effect can last for 2 turns instead of one. It is unclear if deflection has such attribute as well, but unlikely given its 'first strike' nature and shorter CD.

Survival has a CD of 3 turns, and makes user unkillable from the moment the ability is used to the end of next turn. Since this cannot actually stop opponent from punching your HP away, this is inferior compared with abilities mentioned above. But it is still useful when pet is already low.

Soul Ward and Decoy have a CD of 3 and 8 turns respectively. They can block 1 or 2 single direct attack and additional debuff that comes with that particular attack. This is inferior compared with any abilities mentioned above, due to the existence of many abilities that do multiple attacks in 1 turn.

For people interested in how it works in the past, here is the original mechanism back in 5.0 and 5.1:

Update in 5.1:1. The shield animation is removed.2. The ability itself received a buff, it can reflect direct AND field damage within the turn of use. This include the detonation effect of Ice Tomb, dot damage from Nut Barrage and similar effects.3. On the other end, the ability lose the function of 'copy'. It can no longer gain opponent's ability that only has a buff effect on user, such as Extra Plating.

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Currently, this tool tip is too simple to explain its mechanism. Rather than forcing enemy's attack to miss your pet, it seems that this ability works in the following:

0. First things first, reflection must go first to ignore opponent's attack. If reflection did not go first, opponent's attack will do full effect including damage and additional effect such as debuff, and reflection will even fail and start running CD. Upon activating this ability, your pet's speed will increase by 1625 for the current turn. This means reflection will go first in most case, but there is still a chance that your opponent move before you, which happens when opponent uses a first-strike ability or gained first-strike status and has higher final speed after bonus than your pet. If the user die before performing attack, reflection will not happen.

1. It negates all the damage effect caused by enemy's direct attack in this turn. This including the abilities that attack multiple times such as Flurry. For ability with AOE effect on the whole team, such as Arcane Explosion, Reflection only blocks the damage to active pet, bench pet still takes damage (and amount is determined by the assumed damage that would otherwise be dealt on active pet).

2. Negate all the additional effect that is being applied on your current pet, such as Sticky Web.

3. For all the effect that is applied to the whole team or the battle field, such as Nut Barrage, the effect is still applied even the attack itself no longer deals damage this time. This included the time-delayed effect that would have effect on current pet in a few turns such as Ice Tomb.

4. Reflection will not negate opponent's attack's effect the buff up the opponent such as Extra Plating. Oppoenent still gets corresponding buff. For attacks that buff up the user after the attack, such as Cocoon Strike, the attack will do no damage but opponent will still turn into a cocoon.

5. Then, it's your turn to strike back.

6. Your pet will unleash an exactly same attack that your opponent did this time. Type and accuracy of unleashed attack depends on the move being copied rather than being fixed to humanoid.

7. Ability that has additional effect depending on speed will be calculated using current speed after modification. For example, Flurry gets extra attack only when you attack first (in mechanism, it deals extra attack when user has higher speed status, but not necessary to attack first), but when you copy this spell using Reflection, which means you attack after your opponent, you still get the extra hit due to higher current speed. This also means for ability that does extra damage when move after opponent, it does not receive bonus either.

8. The damage of the mirror attack, is based on the the user of Reflection. User's attack status, plus any buff that may alter user's attack, will be used to calculate the damage of the mirror attack. Effect such as Dragonkin's or Beast's passive is also counted in damage calculation (and consumed if Dragonkin's, though Dragonkin's execution buff is known to bug quite often).

9. All secondary effect that caused by the attack, such as Sticky Web, will be applied to the corresponding target. For effect that applies to the whole team, such as Nut Barrage, the effect will be applied to the corresponding team.

10. REMOVEDFor ability that buff the users, reflection will add the effect to its user as well. If the buff being copied has a duration of 1 turn, it will be extended to 2 turns for the user. For ability that has a recoil damage to the user, reflection attack will also deal damage to self accordingly. For ability that brings a debuff on user, the debuff won't occur in this case (unsure about baneling's suicide, need to test when it becomes available).

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Misc:

1. It's extremly powerful when countered ability such as Surge of Power. Your opponent will suffer the damage while you do not need to recharge! (Opponent does not need to recharge either in this way)

2. For ability that has different effects on different number of use, such as Wind-up, when opponent is doing the attack part of the ability, reflection can negate the damage effect, but will not copy the damage. Instead, reflection will copy the initial effect which increases user's damage. If, for any chance, that reflection copied this ability again later in the fight, reflection will do nothing.

3. It can be buggy when used against multi-turn move, thus caution is recommended.

Comment by Sammiches

Using Reflection on the initial attack of Swarm/Stampede-like abilities will causes also cause a swarm of your specific pet to attack the enemy. Was rather silly to see a barrage of Souls of the Aspect charge at a beetle.

Comment by asherkobin

This can work to reflect the damage from Whirlpool it timed properly after two turns.

Comment by Steamhammer

Anubisath Idol reflecting Powerball was one of the funniest things ive ever seen in WoW :p

Comment by Toridias

Comment by HelloKitty

Ie, a pet with Survival up uses an ability against you. The following occurs.

1. Your pet gains reflect.2. That pet attacks you and misses.3. Survival drops off of the opponent.4. Your pet now mimics the opponent's original attack, killing them if they were low enough.

Comment by IhaveNoLife

This spell is absolutely amazing for leveling. If you put the pet with reflection in first, as you enter a (PvE) pet battle, you can cast this spell, the enemies spell will miss you, the low level pet will tag the mob, and then you can proceed to finish off the enemy team with your remaining two pets. The result is an exceedingly high experience gain for the low level pet. I leveled my Anubisath Idol from 1 to 25 in about 2 and a half hours doing this.

Comment by nitrous

Reflection has been replaced with Deflection, an ability that always attempts to go first and causes the pet to avoid all attacks for that round.

Comment by c0mandr

RIP Reflection :(

Comment by Ryawy

Not just for Deflection, but for other abilities as well, this ability will not go first if the pet using it has lower speed than the enemy pet and the enemy pet uses an ability that also attempts to go first.